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Stephen Kinzer: America's Century of Regime Change

Former New York Times Reporter Stephen Kinzer has written several books about regime change as a tool of US foreign policy. In 1982 he co-wrote Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala and has written two more recent books All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003) about the US engineered coup against Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (2006), an omnibus history of 14 US engineered overthrows of foreign governments starting in 1893. There are several talks available online where Kinzer talks about Overthrow and All the Shahs men. Here is a talk from Fora.tv where he discusses Overthrow:

The 14 interventions Kinzer discusses in Overthrow are:

1893: The overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.
1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of Cuba.
1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of Puerto Rico.
1898: Spanish-American War - Takeover of the Philippines.
1910: Installation of General Estrada in Nicaragua.
1912: Installation of President Bonilla in Honduras.
1953: Coup against Mossadegh in Iran.
1954: Overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala.
1963: Coup against Diem in South Vietnam.
1973: Coup against Allende in Chile.
1983: Invasion of Grenada.
1989: Invasion of Panama.
2001: Invasion of Afghanistan.
2003: Invasion of Iraq.

Kinzer also has two interviews on Democracy Now for each of his two latest books, two about Iran and All the Shahs Men and two about Overthrow. Here is an excerpt from the first of the Democracy Now Overthrow interviews regarding the standard pattern that Kinzer sees in the development of these interventions:

You ask about the motivations, and that is one of the patterns that comes through when you look at these things all together. There's really a three-stage motivation that I can see when I watch so many of the developments of these coups. The first thing that happens is that the regime in question starts bothering some American company. They start demanding that the company pay taxes or that it observe labor laws or environmental laws. Sometimes that company is nationalized or is somehow required to sell some of its land or its assets. So the first thing that happens is that an American or a foreign corporation is active in another country, and the government of that country starts to restrict it in some way or give it some trouble, restrict its ability to operate freely.

Then, the leaders of that company come to the political leadership of the United States to complain about the regime in that country. In the political process, in the White House, the motivation morphs a little bit. The U.S. government does not intervene directly to defend the rights of a company, but they transform the motivation from an economic one into a political or geo-strategic one. They make the assumption that any regime that would bother an American company or harass an American company must be anti-American, repressive, dictatorial, and probably the tool of some foreign power or interest that wants to undermine the United States. So the motivation transforms from an economic to a political one, although the actual basis for it never changes.

Then, it morphs one more time when the U.S. leaders have to explain the motivation for this operation to the American people. Then they do not use either the economic or the political motivation usually, but they portray these interventions as liberation operations, just a chance to free a poor oppressed nation from the brutality of a regime that we assume is a dictatorship, because what other kind of a regime would be bothering an American company?

Kinzer's books are worth reading and his interviews worth listening to.

Posted on July 15, 2008 | Comments? (0)

Vultures

See this story . The White House is asking France, Germany and Russia to write off Iraq's debt. FGR, on the other hand are incensed that the US has the gall to ask them for this favour after excluding them from reconstruction conttracts.

Does this disgusting conflict remind you of vultures? Of a bunch of robbers fighting on how to divide the loot?

I think it is appropriate to quote Fidel Castro's description of European powers:
A group of old colonial powers historically responsible for slave trafficking, looting and even the extermination of entire peoples

So, these old colonial powers, smarting from the humiliation of having been usurped by a new imperial power, assume they have a right to the plunder in Iraq. The new headman of the robbers, the US, is going to punish them for not being loyal. How low can people sink?

Posted on December 11, 2003 | Comments? (0)

The End of the American Empire

The invasion of Iraq is a classic case of imperial overreach. The neoconservatives seem to be bent on dismantling the empire from within by causing a fiscal train wreck. For all of Niall Ferguson's shrill protests, the Eurocentric historical narrative is in shambles.

Now OPEC may shift to the Euro -- the end of dollar hegemony is at hand!

Do we see light at the end of the tunnel? See the Monthly Review for some detailed analysis.

P.S:Of course, I exaggerate for effect. We have a long struggle ahead of us.

Posted on December 10, 2003 | Comments? (0)